Bobby Hill
'Robert Jeffrey "Bobby" Hill '''is the son of Hank and Peggy Hill. Bobby's age changes gradually throughout the series. Up until ''Shins of the Father he is 11, then 12, then 13. It's been said in later episodes that Bobby is about 14 years old. Description Bobby Hill is 4 feet 11 inches tall and slightly overweight. His haircut seems to be a close buzzcut (as shown in "Hanks Bad Hair Day"). Bobby does poorly in most sports and athletic activities and is not good with his hands. The exception to this is his ability as a marksman, which is displayed in "How to Fire a Rifle Without Really Trying" and "To Kill a Ladybird" where he shoots his pet raccoon believed to be rabid. These qualities make him a comic foil to his ex-high-school-football-playing, tool-savvy father. They are different in most respects with the few things Bobby is good at, like shooting a gun or dancing, being areas where Hank is weak or mediocre. Despite differences, Bobby and Hank's relationship is close and Bobby considers his father to be his hero. He is also friends with Joseph Gribble and next-door neighbor Connie Souphanousinphone. Bobby wants more than anything to be a prop comic like his hero "Celery Head", but has also aspired to be a "ladies' man", plus-size model, stand-up comic, proctologist and a salesman of "propane and propane accessories". The London Free Press once stated that he "might be the most complex, fully formed kid in TV history." In later seasons he served as the mascot for his middle school football team, the Tom Landry Longhorns. His father Hank Hill is occasionally embarrassed by Bobby's ineptitude in other sports, activities, and in his behavior often stating ("That boy ain't right"), but Bobby most of all wants his father to be proud of him. Hank spent years thinking Bobby was gay, or possibly asexual, but this presumption was put to rest when Connie's father caught her and Bobby together half-naked, and while Hank was obligated to yell at Bobby, he was also subtly pleased by this development. After being consulted by his neighbor Kahn Souphanousinphone about Bobby's actions, Hank breathes a sigh of relief, obviously realizing that his son is heterosexual. This revelation seems to have eased some tension between Hank and Bobby. Although Hank wished to have Bobby follow in his athletic past, there have been times Hank realizes this is not the best idea for Bobby. When Bobby joined the track team, his out-of-shape physiology was used by the coach to punish slackers by having Bobby substitute for them. When a player suffers an injury, the coach is made to substitute Bobby for real, making him run a 1500-yard dash. Bobby wins the event when all the other players trip due to a freak accident. Although Bobby won by default, Hank is still proud of his rare win. Another time Bobby actually agreed with Hank that the soccer team was run under a "sissy program" and tried out for the football team. It was actually Hank who ordered Bobby off the football team once he saw it was run by a sadistic coach who did extreme actions such as chase players on the field with a car. Hank also disapproved of Bobby studying Buddhism, as he dismissed this idea of reincarnation as hooey. Surprisingly, his attempts to get his pastor, Reverend Stroup, involved in this backfired when her liberal ideas indicated all religions are inherently good. Everything worked out for Hank, once Bobby realized Lamas cannot get married and that he cared too much for Connie. Personality Bobby is a very kind, caring, lovable, and a good hearted character. Although his personality disappoints Hank, Bobby is at the same time a crack rifle shot, is a professional-level golfer, and is also skilled at Dance Dance Revolution. Further, Bobby can be pushed into spontaneous anger, as when he punched the larger, more muscular Joseph for kissing Connie. Bobby has many of his irritating grandfather's more positive traits, such as joviality, body design and the knack of romancing girls with surprising ease. Middle name There is some debate over Bobby's middle name. Some believe it to be Jeffrey, as stated in the episode "Bobby Slam" when a very drunk Peggy said she wanted to name him Jeffrey but Hank would not let her. While some claim his full name is revealed on a trophy shelf built by Hank when Bobby was a baby to be Robert "Butch" Hill in the episode "Torch Song Hillogy". However, Hank merely hoped his son's nickname would be "Butch". In "Pregnant Paws", it is revealed that Bobby doesn't know his middle name and in "Love Hurts and So Does Art", Peggy, while filling out forms for Bobby at the hospital, says, "Bobby, we gave you a dumb middle name." In the Season 1 DVD of the show, Bobby's character bio is given as Robert "Bobby" Jeffrey Hill, and during a character commentary in one of the episodes, Peggy refers to Bobby as Robert Jeffrey Hill. In Season 13, episode 13 ("Nancy Does Dallas"), Peggy refers to Bobby as "Robert Jeffrey Hill". Late Bloomer While he is older than Connie and Joseph, Bobby is a classic example of a late bloomer. He has not yet experienced puberty and is jealous that Joseph is tall, dark and surprisingly handsome and sometimes mistaken for an adult. The possible reason of him being a late bloomer could be from smoking in a young age. It's unknown if the writers ever let Bobby enter puberty or not, since the changes to the character would most likely cause Pamela Adlon to be replaced as the voice for Bobby for a newer, deeper voice (that is what led to the change of the voice actor for Joseph from Brittany Murphy to Breckin Meyer). In the Episode "Bad Girls, Bad Girls, Whatcha Gonna Do?" Connie's delinquent cousin, Tid Pao is staying with the family, due to some drug debts that she is hiding from back home. Bobby falls for her and makes Connie jealous. However, Tid Pao sees Bobby as a young child and when Bobby drops Connie as his science partner to be Tid Pao's, problems pop-up. Unknown to Bobby, he helped Tid Pao make a meth lab for their science project. It is up to Connie to pull Bobby out of a big mess. Eating habits Bobby has a penchant for eating unusual things and getting himself in trouble for doing so. Bobby once ate a 72-ounce steak in 37 minutes after a breakup with his vegetarian girlfriend Marie for the sake of spiting her, then later vomits it up while talking to Connie. In another episode, "Love Hurts and So Does Art", Bobby became ill with gout after repeatedly consuming chicken liver sandwiches at a New York-style deli in the local mall. Although the gout eventually requires him to use a senior citizen-style electric scooter, he still rides it to the mall to eat more chicken livers. However it is suggested he did this because he was nervous about attending the school dance, and was using it as an excuse to get out of it. Bobby also ate an entire dish of lutefisk, a very smelly fish dish, that was prepared by the town's new female Pastor. His over consumption and subsequent stomach ache resulted in a fire that destroyed the church his family attends (albeit indirectly, as it was the matches he lit to cover the smell of the dish that burnt the church). In "Peggy's Turtle Song", Bobby eats too much sugar one morning and is mistakenly diagnosed with attention deficit disorder. In "Westie Side Story" Bobby makes reference to eating Bible leather while chewing on a dog's leash. In "Hank's Choice", when the family discovers Bobby is allergic to Ladybird, the family dog, Bobby lives outside the house. He stays there even after he discovers his medication is alleviating his symptoms so he can stay outside and keep ordering pizza for dinner. Bobby has also displayed talents for cooking and homemaking in general, to the chagrin of his mother Peggy. In the episode "Goodbye Normal Jeans", Bobby takes a shine to his new homemaking class where he learns, among other things, to become a culinary whiz. Peggy becomes jealous that Hank now prefers Bobby's cooking to her own and goes out of her way to sabotage Bobby's Thanksgiving turkey. In the event, she failed. One constant throughout the entire run of the show has been Bobby's affinity for fruit pies. In the episode entitled "Junkie Business", Hank tries to persuade Bobby to come to work with him by listing all the items in the vending machine. Bobby responds tearfully by saying, "You had me at 'fruit pies'." In the episode entitled "To Kill a Ladybird", Bobby befriends a raccoon and shares fruit pies with him on some house trash cans, but not before Peggy chides Bobby to eat them in the kitchen because she is sick of finding crumbs in the bathtub. In the episode, "Little Horrors of Shop", Peggy extracts information from Bobby by bribing him with a fruit pie. In the episode "The Son That Got Away", a fruit pie is used by Ladybird to track Bobby's scent. In the episode "Good Hill Hunting", before leaving on a hunting trip with Hank, Bobby is told by Peggy that she filled his rifle case with fruit pies, and put his rifle in his sleeping bag. In yet another, Luanne replaces the filling in one of Bobby's fruit pies with dirt as part of a feud between the two, where Peggy stated to Luanne "you messed with his fruit pies, after that he had nothing to lose". In the episode "John Vitti Presents: Return to LaGrunta," Bobby becomes infatuated with capers, only to discover that they went well with everything except fruit pies. He also once poured straight syrup on a paper plate and started lapping it up like a cat. Gallery 0.jpg|Bobby and Peggy in "Bobby Goes Nuts". Bobby.jpg|Promotional shot Of Bobby Hill. THAT'S MY PURSE!.jpg|Bobby kicking Clark in the crotch in Bobby Goes Nuts. king-of-hill14.jpg|Bobby with his best friend Connie. Trivia * Occasionally seen when scenes show the interior of Bobby's room, there is a Bart Simpson doll sitting on his shelf, a possible reference to the show's co-creator, who worked on The Simpsons ''before co-creating ''King of the Hill. *Bobby is possibly named after Bobby Beavis, someone from Mike Judge's youth who was also the namesake of one of the title characters on Beavis and Butt-Head. *The school which Bobby Hill attends, Tom Landry Middle School (named after the Dallas Cowboys football coach), really does exist. It is located in Irving, Texas in the sub-division of Valley Ranch, just a few blocks down MacArthur Blvd. from the Dallas Cowboys' Office and Training Facility (most of the streets in the neighborhood are also named after Dallas Cowboy greats). *A 1999 episode "Death and Texas" has a death row inmate named "Wesley Martin Archer." Bobby comments that it's a good name for a killer. This episode is directed by Wesley Archer. Category:Characters Category:Tom Landry students Category:Hills Category:Main Characters Category:Males Category:Lovers